This is very relatable, especially the cycle of committing to a high-impact direction, later doubting it, and then restarting the search for “the right thing.” One thing that stands out is how much smoother things became when you had a tight, consistent collaborator. That suggests the bottleneck may not be only what you work on, but how you work coordination, feedback loops, and shared epistemics can reduce the constant re-evaluation loop. It might be worth treating “stable collaboration + execution environment” as a first-order priority, not a secondary benefit. For many people, that alone increases impact more reliably than repeatedly switching between cause areas. Appreciate the honesty in this, this pattern is likely more common than it looks from the outside.
This is very relatable, especially the cycle of committing to a high-impact direction, later doubting it, and then restarting the search for “the right thing.”
One thing that stands out is how much smoother things became when you had a tight, consistent collaborator. That suggests the bottleneck may not be only what you work on, but how you work coordination, feedback loops, and shared epistemics can reduce the constant re-evaluation loop.
It might be worth treating “stable collaboration + execution environment” as a first-order priority, not a secondary benefit. For many people, that alone increases impact more reliably than repeatedly switching between cause areas.
Appreciate the honesty in this, this pattern is likely more common than it looks from the outside.